With each new generation of FPGA devices, Xilinx continues to push the performance envelope to match the ever increasing requirements of target applications. The recent announcement of the Virtex-6 family is no exception. More processing power, lower power consumption and updated interface features to match the latest technology I/O requirements are all part of the new devices.

While it might be easy to assume that faster, bigger, more powerful is better, it's important to understand how the latest FPGA innovations actually deliver this higher performance to best match the device to the specific requirements of the application.

"Because they are configurable, FPGAs not only support many of the key resources on our board-level products, they also help extend product life cycles."